


Solheim

by medical_mechanica, Verdin



Series: Three Colors: Black [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Consentacles, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-30 15:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15754491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medical_mechanica/pseuds/medical_mechanica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdin/pseuds/Verdin
Summary: For Ardynoct Week 2018. Our free day, and another incarnation of light vs dark.Ardyn's first encounter with the darkness, and one that calls himself Night.The Scourge turns out to be a very different thing from what he expected...





	Solheim

" _It_ is ready for you now." Gilgamesh informed him. "Well, as ready as it can be."

They finally had managed to capture _it_ , the living embodiment of the Darkness, it that was Source and Harvest. It had taken lives, too many of them, and the help of his royal brother, but the Healer of the People would now be able to finish this, once and for all.

The darkness around the palanquin in the center of the temple was _darker_ somehow, bright sunlight cascading in from the open rooftop above casting crisp shadows that breathed tangibly, rising up from the long stone slabs it laid on. Impossible waves floating up. It sat unattended, long heavy curtains blocking any and all light from getting in, the only creature to be found the one that remained inside it.

"Are you ready for this?" The hand of his Shield was heavy on Ardyn's shoulder, and a slight tinge of worry colored his voice.

 

Ardyn shot a quick look back before staring back at the stark darkness just through the parted velvet of the curtains and giving the other a nod. Face falling in determination, he made his way over to the structure, feeling the warmth of the sun fade away as he drew near. Pausing just a few steps away, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and a dull ringing filled his ears, although he could not tell if it was due to the nature of the evil he faced, or his his own apprehension. Inhaling a deep breath, he took the last few steps forward, pulling the curtain aside.

A soft hiss as something inside _moved_ , tried to get away from the thin memories of light that reached inside. It was _dark_ in here, dark and cool, and smelled vaguely of blood and incense. The cellars of the embalmers' guild came to his mind, where those ended that were too far gone to be cured.

Even still, the healer reached inside, blindly into the pitch darkness that dwelled there, until he found the structure of an elbow, or what he thought was an elbow. Gripping fabric that was _moist_ , Ardyn positioned himself to take a step just past the curtain, eyes squinting shut as he tried desperately to see anything in the darkness.

Something reached out for him. Dragged him inside, and drew the curtain behind him closed.

"You..." A voice like dark honey in his ear, smooth and dark, but somehow neither male nor female. "Aaah..." They sounded delighted, and the young healer felt something wrap around him, slick and cool and snakelike, but so very smooth.

 

 

With no more than a gasp, the muscular structure threaded up from his waist to his neck, and around again to cover his mouth, muffling any noise he strained to make. It would not budge, and only grew tighter as he tried to shove it off, feeling the compression on his ribs. Unable to see, the healer grimaced into the darkness, gripping onto a slippery tendril as best he could and set to try and get to work, the faintest glow leaving his hands in a spark before dark shadows reached out and ripped his arms back, holding him firm. A frustrated sigh reverberated from his chest, unable to leave his mouth.

"I felt you coming, _Healer_ . Your light brings nothing but pain, and yet..." Something _licked_ his throat, agonizingly slow and so ready to tear him apart. "Even sweeter than I dreamed... Do not cry, my sweet sun. They will not come to your aid this time."

For now, the creature allowed him to breathe and speak freely, smooth wetness withdrawing.

A cough, followed by a coarse and curious 'what?' was all he managed to let out, limbs still held down. Eyes tried to look around for any movement, something to focus on, but found nothing. A breath against his head alerted him to the presence of _something_ , and he tried to ignore feeling as if it was the very darkness that was communing with him. "Please, let me heal you." He tried again, falling slack in the thing's grasp.

"What do you wish to _heal_ , child?"

 

 

In the darkness, something formed. Became head, became body, became black oil given human form, and Ardyn understood it was _beautiful_ , even if he did not understand, neither the being nor how he was able to see.

"So the day wishes to cure the night. Truly thinks it's possible..." A low laughter filling the cabin.

A chill ran down his spine as the laughter sounded, but it only steeled his resolve. "Light shall overcome the Dark," the young healer asserted to the figure, whose aura sucked the very light from the air, looming before him, around him, and although unable to see, Ardyn could _feel_ it smile.

"But would you not miss the night? The gentle embrace it brings? The relief from the long, burning days..."

 

The being stretched out its _arms_ , yeah, those were arms now, just to be a little more like him, while Ardyn was still being held, bound  by unseen threads that felt like spidersilk on his skin. It edged a little closer, let almost-fingers run over the Healer's wide chest. "I've seen you cry, child, when the mortals became all to much, with their wishes and their hopes and their needs. They know no bounds, no matter what you try. More, always more."

Despite the way the formed shifted and bent before him, the odd sounds of joints popping back into place a strange accompaniment to the way the voice hollowed out into a single masculine source reverberating against the shapeshifting fluid as the phrase came to an end. The healer meant to flinch at the spindly touch, but there was no direct surface for him to flinch against; it seeped through his shirt and yet still pushed, flattening out and the shirt fell away, contact against his body lost to the way a prickling condensation collected  around him at once.

"Yesss... this is how it feels like..."

With every passing heartbeat, the night in front of him became more solid, more like a man, was more skin than wet fog.

"I remember..."

 

Ardyn squirmed, fighting terror, the hold at his hands giving way into a thick syrup as the creature formed, before tugging down hard, stiffened. A lengthening mass of goo connecting the arms leaning in, sound echoing out of what was a breathing mass that was trying to be a mouth. The Healer leaned away, and it followed, another lick, like the one to his neck, but this time his mouth, prying it open. Only sour and vicious in passing, the form gave way to skin, lips and a tongue forming against his own.

It tasted sweet and strange and a bit _fermented_ and was still so very cold. In too deep, and too agile, exploring the slick flesh between cheeks and teeth. It _tickled_.

Just as he thought to laugh, it stretched, gliding straight down over his uvula and the back of his throat, and for a quick second he was afraid he wouldn't be able to breathe as it pushed deeper still and he thought to gag, and past that, where his sense of sensation ended, and he wretched. As he did, the pressure retracted, just nearly leaving his mouth. Instead the arms became a soft embrace, and Ardyn blinked in confusion. The form seemed even more human then, more flesh and even hair, scraping up against his chin.

"Yes," it repeated, distinctively male now. "Something like this."

Ardyn felt like something inside him had changed, had been subtly _rearranged_ , and he looked into those dark blue eyes so close to his own, seeing them clearly now.

" _Who are you?_ "

 

 

It thought for a while, trying to encase complex ideas into plain words.

"Night," it then said. "Called upon by fire and hate to hide and to vanquish. Who are you?" Almost-fingers running through long red hair.

Ardyn's jaw clenched. "I am the Day," what should have been a hand came to rest at the muscle there. Tilting his head away from the touch, he continued, "I have been given the gift to heal, and to reveal, and to banish your evil once and for all." A grip titled his head back to look into the newly formed face, and the very top of the palanquin seemed to allow in the faintest bit of light then, making the creature before him look that much more _human_ , and it shook him.

 

"That is not your name, child, and that is not what you are, Day does not breathe. Day does not fear. Day does not doubt." It cocked his head, seemed to _listen_ to something. "But _Ardyn_ does. And does he not deserve to be king? So strong, and so kind, and so wise, blessed by those who called upon..." Caressing fingers hovering over his lips. Over his lashes.

For the first time, terror passed through the healer, and he shuddered against sensations mimicking touch. "Bahamut!" he uttered.

The thing pursed lips that were delicately drawn on an even face. "And yet, poor Ardyn is here, trying to heal, while his brother, his own brother..." A sad little smile. "Ah. Mortals. Traitors. Indeed. I remember."

A hiss at the memory and the mention of his name, before a lengthy silence passed. "What would you have of me? If you are to destroy me, do it." The inquiry was quiet, adamant but personal, as if between two old friends.

"That, my sweet day, I cannot. I might well kill the poor Ardyn in all his suffering, end it, end his prayers for salvation, but..." The cool fingers came to a halt over the relentlessly beating heart of the human. "Do you still wish to heal me? Save what was once like you inside me, if there ever was?"

A long, deep breath, followed by a sad sigh. "Yes."

 

 

"And yet you never touched one so long gone, so far behind the frontiers you know. How do you wish to go at it?"

"Free me." He flexed, straining against the pull on his arms. "Let me touch you. As the Darkness fights and recedes, I shall comfort you."

"And still you keep at your honest lies." The hand continued its path now, a single finger digging down into the skin over the sternum. "To cleanse one like me, one far, far more diluted than me even, you need to break the vessel. There's no other way for you to drink it all in."

The silk around Ardyn's arms tightened as he moved.

A sharp breath, and the healer struggled against the creature's hold. _"Please_ ," the desperation in his voice was unmistakable.

"You are _strong_." The cool lips against the Healer's cheek. "Maybe just strong enough. Maybe strong enough to contain it. But you do know what it entails?"

He stopped struggling as hard, letting his limbs sink down into sticky quicksand held in stasis. "If you would only _free_ me," Ardyn began again, letting himself sink down onto a knee. The creature cracked a smile as it loomed above him, before the healer balanced on a hand beneath him with a vague sneer. Before another moment passed, another spark from his hand as he desperately tried to gather light into it.

 

It dragged him up, head forced back. limbs held firmly in black webs, just so close to dislocating them.

"Years and years and years, and an army just to get a hold of me, and _this_ is all you can offer? _Pleas_? Not even arrows and blades filled with your light to pierce my body, to tear me to pieces?" It grinned. Spit black oil on the Healer's face, on his bare chest, watched how it ran in lazy patterns over his skin.

Angrily, the Healer huffed, setting down and grunting. Light protruded out of his palms in a sharp burst, sizzling into the dark depths marking burns accompanied by an acrid smell. Inhaling deeply, he reached for the fleshy face, hand glowing in a bright illumination that made the darkness stretch out around him infinitely. As he gripped the face and it screamed, melted back into goo, wrapping all the way around his arm and up to his neck, catching his momentum.

 

 

_Yessss_...

The black world around him reverberated in delight. Stretched out, became thin, became _wide_.

Became landscape, the endless, rolling hills of a desert with a leaden sky stretching over it. Ardyn was dropped into the sand, rolled into down a dune over coarse stones, made into tiny splinters by time and heavy winds. He could hear them, steadily rising and falling, singing on the crystalline sands, but other than that, there was nothing here. No sound, not even the frantic beating of his own heart.

 

He stumbled up from the ground, searching desperately for any sort of indication of where he was, or of any light, but found nothing. Walking on, a vast nothingness stretched on before him, the surreal absence of sound leaving a ringing in his ears. Just as the thought dawned on him that he might be going mad, a distant but distinctly real booming sounded before him, a swiftly moving stormfront moving toward him, but only audibly. Ardyn squinted, his eyes saw nothing, until the sand shifted beneath his feet again, and he silently slipped

Slipped, and fell, hitting a smooth surface, ice or glass or a black mirror. As he looked up, the desert was gone, and all that was left was an endless plane of shining obsidian, with only his mirror image under his feet to keep him company.

 

And yet still, no sound could be heard, and as he picked himself back up the healer checked his ears, watching his reflection do the same. Stepping forward, his footfalls didn't seem to make contact with the ground, and he crouched down. Observing his reflection beneath him, he blinked, running a hand down, seeing a gap  before the surface, like a glass pane before a mirror. He pressed against it, surface cool and smooth as could be expected. He tapped at the surface, still silent, before trying to reach a healing light out to it, but found nothing. Bringing his hand up to check it, when the face that looked back at his own looked _different_ , the familiar one from the ooze, he let out a shout. The sound emitted from his reflection, his own thrown voice bouncing off as from far away. And as doubletaked, pressing against the surface again, and his face was restored. Footsteps sounded behind him

"You are very loud," a tired voice stated.

 

 

The boy behind him wore a memory of robes Ardyn knew from books that were deemed ancient among the Solheimian scholars. Rubbed sleep from his eyes. His bare feet left black prints on the polished ground, but other than that, he looked so very human.

The Healer opened his mouth, urging sound to come, but it echoed distantly, dying on a quiet gust of constant wind before reaching their ears. The boy before him just sucked his teeth, shaking his head and casually approached him. Padded footfalls continued to bounce off the ground. Ardyn's face softened, nothing how bags hung under the other's eyes.

"You wanted to wake me? You must have. You would not be here otherwise." A moment's hesitation, and the blue eyes grew wide. "Have you come to take my burden?"

The same wind that scattered Ardyn's voice ruffled the boy's hair, and he did indeed look _tired_. The healer's mouth fell into a sad frown, and he nodded. " _Allow me_ " sounded clearly for the first time over the breeze.

 

All of a sudden, his arms were around him, the dark-haired head on his chest. The boy was so frail compared to him, so _cold_ , and he heard through the wind that he was crying.

And the healer held him close, petting the weeping form, frame racked by sobs. Ardyn's mind wandered to the small dagger at his side, eyes narrowing, but instead ran a reassuring arm down a chilled shoulder.

Between two little wails, he heard him pressing out an _I know_ , and then he drowned in more black tears, running down Ardyn's chest, his legs, his feet, starting to create a little puddle around them that grew rapidly.

_Will it hurt?_

" _Not for long_ "

Ardyn pressed the body to his own, a moist face nuzzling hard as an extended howl of sadness rang out before fading back into quickened faded breaths.

Then, they were on a rocky shore, by a sea, completely bereft of movement. Time moved, or at least there was air there, and sound, but there were no tides, no sky, just dark clouds and grey water. The hands clinging to the healer held firm, and Ardyn found himself looking tenderly into the blue eyes of the dark haired boy in his arms, hand resting on his lower back.

_May I wish for one last thing?_

" _Anything_ ", Ardyn fingered the dagger.

_A kiss, and one shared breath. Just to remember what once was, before you let me rest._

Storm-blue eyes swallowed Ardyn's world, tearful and pleading. It seemed the only color in this world of obsidian.

Eyelashes fluttering, he lovingly smiled, bringing a hand away from the weapon to hold an ink-stained cheek. Caressing it gently, Ardyn tilted the boy's face up as he leaned down, eyes half lidded. Softly, he brought their lips together as a distant gasp sounded on the breeze.

He felt the boy _inhale_ , felt him draw the air from his lungs, and with it, something else came in golden strands, came out of his center and over his lips and into the cold body in his arms, and he felt it grow warmer in his embrace.

Ardyn could feel a tug from the inside of his chest, a lingering snag that began to sting. He ignored it, relaxing his jaw as the other's warmth grew, even as a deep groan softly sounded in the distance. The lips against his pressed back, the arms around him holding stronger. The tug increased, and the stinging grew. The healer deepened the kiss, pushing breath and light out of his lungs, dropping the hand from the boy's face.

The barest idea of a nod, not breaking the contact.

_I am ready--_

With a reassuring palm running along the flat of his back, the blade was buried up into his heart.

 

 

It had been easy enough to find the space between two ribs through the relaxed muscles in a body that just accepted his fate. Ardyn felt him tense up for a moment, and then rapidly loose what little life still was inside of him. On his lips, he tasted copper and decay and ashes, and he swallowed down, and kept on swallowing as that what remained forced itself inside a vessel that was so very willing to accept.

So overabundant.

So painful.

So _delicious_.

It spread across his face, over eyes, nostrils, ears and down. Everything returned to darkness, and the healer realized he was again held down, weighted in a living molasses. The formerly distant screaming in the wind was his own, now so loud in his head, and a tightness wrapped around him, dripping down with a crushing force. The healer felt his remaining warmth fade, insides full of the acrid stuff.

 

***

 

Ardyn Lucis Caelum coughed. Regurgitated blood and bile onto a wooden floor.

The golden rays of the setting sun forced their way through tiny gaps between curtains and side panels of the palanquin he was lying in, and there was-- nothing. Nothing else. Had he--?

His dagger still in his cramped hand, silver blade black and corroded now, rotten and rusted like something ancient found in the woods. He dropped it in disgust.

 

Upon pushing aside the velvet curtain, he noticed how _peaceful_ everything was, the temple and outside silent save for birds singing in the daylight. Gilgamesh awaited him expectantly. It was if no time had passed.

“Master?“ He hurried to give him a hand. Pulled up his mask to show his worried face.

Ardyn stumbled out of the structure, legs forgetting themselves. He eyed the world around him wearily. Was it really gone?

His Shield was there to catch him, to hold him upright. Waiting in silence until he truly returned.

"What.... what did you see?"

“You've been gone for one day and one night. There was silence behind the curtains, but--“ A moment of hesitation. “I _knew_ you were alive. Sent everyone away who came asking. Waited.“

The Healer nodded then, eyes far away. "Thank you," finally he seemed to see out of his eyes for the first time, looking to Gilgamesh for the first time, clapping a hand to his shoulder gratefully. It was all he could do in that moment, mind still reeling.

“You need rest.“ That was written in stone, and Ardyn was only too willing to let himself be guided away, away to a place with light and water that was not rich with salt.


End file.
